A Blank Slate Regression For The Idol That Lost His Original Intention

“The door won’t open.”

Seo Yehyun, who had tried to go for a walk to shake off the grogginess of the morning, said this while attempting to open the door.

Seeing the door not budge gave me a sense of déjà vu from when we were isolated at the other lodging.

I immediately ran to the window and looked outside to see thick snow piled up.

Unable to gauge how much there was, I decided to go outside and check for myself.

The window was low, but luckily, unlike the time we got snowed in at the other lodging, the snow hadn’t piled up to the window. We didn’t need to dig through the snow.

“Hey, can you grab my down jacket?”

Ryu Jaehee, who had heard my shout, brought my down jacket from where it was hanging on the sofa and handed it to me, asking, “Are you going outside?”

“Yeah, just going to see how much snow’s piled up.”

I climbed out through the window and my feet sank into the snow. The swirling snowstorm made it hard to see.

“Wow, the snow’s up to about two-thirds of my calves. Can any cars even get through?”

With this much snow, it made sense that the front door wouldn’t open.

After brushing off the snow that quickly accumulated on my head and shoulders, I plopped down in front of the heater. Just then, the PD of the Mydol observation camera called.

“Huh, why isn’t the internet working?”

“Isn’t the Wi-Fi out? Use data.”

“Data isn’t working either.”

“Try turning your phone off and on again. Huh, mine’s not working either. What’s going on? Hajun! The internet’s not working!”

I slipped away from the noisy youngest members and entered the shaman-themed room.

The room’s atmosphere was still eerie, but it was nothing compared to the conversation I was having.

“Yes, I’ll pass that on to the members. Okay.”

After finishing the call with the PD, I let out a sigh and stepped out to gather the members.

“Hey guys, gather around. I have good news and bad news. Which do you want to hear first?”

“The bad news,” Kim Dobin quickly replied. Isn’t it normal to want to hear the good news first?

“Too much snow has piled up, so no cars can get through. It’s snowing so heavily right now that they won’t be able to start clearing it until tomorrow.”

“What if we walk down?”

“Do you know the way?”

There was no way Kim Dobin, who had been sound asleep in the car on the way up here, would know the way. Plus, the snow probably covered the path.

“And the good news?”

“The recorder that’s been making those creepy sounds will run out of battery soon.”

“That’s it?”

“Yeah, that’s it.”

A solemn mood hung in the air.

“So we have to stay another day in this haunted house…?”

Kim Dobin, holding his head and shivering, pointed to the shaman-themed room.

“This is the curse of the lodge! The curse of this haunted lodge!”

“You’re talking nonsense again.”

Clicking my tongue, I tried to calm down the panicking Kim Dobin.

“Hey, we already went around all the rooms yesterday, so it’s not as scary today. Plus, we’re not sleeping in that room; we’re all sleeping together in the living room. What’s there to be scared of?”

“But both Jaehee and Yehyun had sleep paralysis at the same time last night. They both saw the same ghost. That can’t be just a coincidence, right?”

Yeah, they did say they saw the same ghost. A ghost with long hair. How many long-haired ghosts are there? Seriously.

“Do you want to go outside and make an igloo to sleep in, Dobin?”

Even though I was being sarcastic, Kim Dobin seemed to take me seriously and nodded earnestly.

“That might not be a bad idea. If we all work together to build an igloo, we could make one big enough for all five of us, right?”

This is driving me insane.

In this already nerve-wracking situation, I was debating whether chewing him out would make me feel better when the quick-thinking Ryu Jaehee pulled Kim Dobin out of my line of sight.

“There’s a low chance of this happening, but just in case the electricity and gas go out, they said we should start a fire in the fireplace.”

“They said there’s firewood in the shed behind the pension. Should we go get it before the snowstorm gets worse?”

“Let’s go together.”

I stopped Seo Yehyun, who was about to head out alone, and went over to Gyeon Hajun in the kitchen to ask, “Hey, is the power still on?”

“Yeah, the induction stove’s still working.”

“Then let’s cook anything that requires heat in advance. If things go south, we can reheat it on the fireplace.”

Leaving the cooking to Gyeon Hajun, I picked up my down jacket and headed towards Seo Yehyun, who was bundling up.

“Did they say there was a snow shovel behind the pension yesterday?”

“Yeah, they said it was leaning against the wall.”

“We should dig a path through the snow to the shed. We’ll need to go back and forth for firewood, and who knows when we’ll need to restock it.”

I waved over the youngest members, who were sitting around doing nothing, and signaled for them to follow.

Since the front door still wouldn’t open, we climbed out through the window.

Leaving Gyeon Hajun to prepare the meal, the four of us started shoveling snow towards the shed.

With Ryu Jaehee handling the camcorder, it was essentially just the three of us working.

“Wow, it seems like we’re getting the hang of shoveling after doing it once before, huh?”

“I’d rather not get used to this…”

Seo Yehyun weakly replied while shoveling snow.

With the three of us working together, we managed to clear a path to the shed.

Luckily, the shed wasn’t too far from the pension.

When we opened the shed, the first thing that caught our eyes was a pile of firewood. Fortunately, we didn’t have to chop any logs.

While Seo Yehyun went straight for the firewood, Ryu Jaehee, who was rummaging around the shed, came over holding a blowtorch.

“Should we take the blowtorch too?”

“Yeah, we should. No one has a lighter, right?”

If I were still smoking, I’d have one, but I quit, so…

“There’s also a portable gas burner. Just in case the power goes out, let’s take this too, along with some butane gas.”

After grabbing whatever looked useful from the shed, we headed back to the pension.

We tossed the firewood through the window and, since we already had the shovels out, cleared the snow in front of the main door as well.

“Have you ever been in a survival situation? Why do you seem so familiar with this?”

“Because I can’t trust you guys.”

I replied while yanking on the door handle. With a strong pull, the door finally opened.

“Why isn’t the wood catching fire? It’s just getting scorched…”

“If we keep at it, it’ll catch fire eventually, right?”

I stood by the fireplace, observing the clumsy fire-starting efforts of Seo Yehyun and Kim Dobin, who were probably the least reliable when it came to this sort of task.

After a long struggle with the blowtorch and the firewood, they somehow managed to get the fire going.

“Let’s eat!”

At Gyeon Hajun’s call, we stopped watching and headed to the dining table. Ryu Jaehee had already finished setting it up.

Grilled spam, fried eggs, kimchi, microwave rice, canned tuna, and golden-brown shrimp dumplings.

“Good thing we bought instant rice in bulk. Otherwise, we’d be eating without rice today.”

We had originally planned to spend just one night here and leave in the morning, so we’d only bought enough food for one meal. But, since we secretly stashed more food away for late-night snacks, we ended up with enough for another day.

Yesterday’s unplanned haunted house experience and everyone having to sleep together in the living room meant we couldn’t sneak food past Seo Yehyun’s watchful eye, which turned out to be a stroke of luck.

If we’d eaten our late-night snacks, we would’ve been short on food today.

“When did you even buy spam?”

“Oh, come on, Yehyun. Let’s not sweat the small stuff. If I hadn’t snuck this in, we wouldn’t be able to have a meal like this now, would we?”

After finishing my late lunch, I slouched on the sofa and turned on the mobile data on my phone.

My phone’s internet was also down.

Without the internet…

“I’m screwed.”

It was impossible to complete the weekly quest. Yesterday, I was so engrossed in exploring the haunted house that I skipped the weekly quest, and if I skip today too, I’ll be hit with a penalty.

And of all days, the weekly quest calculation is due tomorrow at midnight.

Since I already used the one-time penalty waiver I received a while back during a busy week of working on my music, I only have two options left.

Either accept the penalty quietly, or use up all the random tickets and item selections I’ve saved to draw a penalty exemption.

The latter is a gamble; if I don’t get the exemption, it’s game over.

‘Wait a minute, this is an unexpected situation caused by a natural disaster, so shouldn’t the system show some leniency?’

The system remained silent. I was so used to it by now that I didn’t even get angry.

Whatever the penalty might be, I just hoped it wouldn’t involve coughing up blood. We can’t even get to the hospital emergency room right now.

As the sun set and it grew dark, the five of us wrapped ourselves in blankets and gathered in front of the fireplace.

“Hello, everyone! This is Dobin, back with Season 2 of our survival special. We’re currently stranded in a haunted house—or rather, a haunted lodge—due to a snowstorm. This time, it’s a real survival situation!”

I asked Kim Dobin, who was enthusiastically talking into the camcorder, “Why are you filming now? Why not in the morning?”

“Hey, you’re supposed to film these things in the dark evening to create a sense of danger.”

Even after hearing his answer, I didn’t get it. He always had a unique way of thinking.

“Doesn’t it feel like we’re on a camping trip?” Seo Yehyun chuckled as he warmed his hands by the fire.

“I don’t know about a camping trip. It feels more like a scene from a survival thriller or a horror movie. Like we’re waiting for a ghost or a killer to show up.”

“Do you really want to say things like that in a place covered with ghost pictures and talismans?”

“Ah, Kim Dobin, cut it out!”

I turned to look at Ryu Jaehee, who let out a sharp cry, telling off Kim Dobin for spouting more nonsense.

“Jaehee, what’s wrong?”

While everyone looked at Ryu Jaehee in confusion, Gyeon Hajun calmly asked. Ryu Jaehui, on the verge of tears, responded.

“When I had sleep paralysis yesterday, a long-haired ghost crawled out of that room and started crawling all over us, strangling me! Yehyun hyung said he had the same dream, so I’m scared to death, and now Dobin hyung is talking about ghosts…!”

Ryu Jaehee’s finger pointed toward the room I had chosen. It was the room with the ghost mannequin that suddenly jumped out of the closet.

“Maybe it was just a vivid nightmare, created by your spectacular and rich imagination.”

“Is it really just a coincidence that two people had the same dream?”

“You’re the one spreading fear, man.”

Before the youngest ones could start bickering, I made them apologize and prepared for sleep.

We hadn’t slept much the night before, and the hard labor we did today had left us completely exhausted.

As the grandfather clock struck midnight, the ruthless system, as heartless as a cruel loan shark, began its calculation.

[☀ Starting weekly quest calculation.]

[⚠ Less than three weekly quests completed, random penalty will be imposed.]

 

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